"my life" continues

I had this feeling today while driving.

I thought my life now isn't "my life after Robin", it's simply "my life".

I was a big part of Robin's life - we were together for half her time on earth.

She has been a big part of my life. But that chapter's over.

My life keeps developing. At least until I'm no longer here.

What's "normal" after twelve months

I met with Alex today. These days I sometimes feel like I don’t have many issues until I anticipate meeting with him and I begin to think about what we'll discuss.

Today I talked about dating and recognizing that I feel like I don't know what I want out of life or relationships. I feel like I need to figure out what relationships are about again and that whatever "ideal" I had when I met Robin no longer exists. Even the simple idea that I could plan to be with someone into old age doesn’t seem true anymore.

Alex's first observation was "you seem to be telling me this like it's not normal". That one year after losing Robin you're wondering why you don’t have everything figured out. He said, imagine I introduced you to a friend and this fellow had lost his wife of twenty years just twelve months ago. If he told the same story would it sound "normal" to you?

Boy, does Alex know how to make me laugh these days. Yep, I probably wouldn't be surprised that the fellow hadn't yet worked things out.

Secondly he noted that of course I couldn't make the same assumptions about relationships. The fact that Robin died proves that you can't just assume people will be around forever. He explained that as I form new ideas about what life is about, and about what relationships are about, the new ideas will have to naturally have to take this fact into account. How could they not - life has proven some of the original assumptions to be untrue!

Dating too early?

I was talking with a friend and I stated something that I'd been thinking about for a few days, that "maybe I had started dating too early". She asked why I would think that and so I explained some of the complications.

Then I thought, it seems like I’m judging myself. I've learned an awful lot about myself and about relationships in the past six months - not the least of which is that we (as humans) have the ability to form new relationships even after loss. Then I thought "I guess it's just been part of my path" so there's no need for me to make judgments about where my journey has taken me.

Dating a widower

Looking back at the first year some things really do astound me. One is how I could have started dating after only about six months. At the time I knew it was something I felt I wanted/needed to do. I recognized that there were some risks, and I'd read that men (widowers) are more inclined to jump right back into things and even marry more quickly than widows.

With six months perspective it's much easier to see the potential issues/complications. For me the biggest problem is not being settled in life. I feel that I'm in no place to make any commitments since I haven't yet reformulated "what life is about". This of course complicates a relationship with a non-widow because it's difficult to describe what's going on (or not going on) in your head. In attempting to verbalize where I am in life I realized there are some things that a person could never fully express in words. There's no way to convey to another person what losing a twenty year partner is like, what "grieving" is like, what it's like to have no solid ground, what it's like to have no goals. I have read that widows and widowers often meet and marry and I can see why - though neither can express exactly what they've been through, their new partner has been in the same boat and can relate.

On one of the drives to New York City Robin had told me about one of her massage clients. The woman was in her 80's and she had been widowed about six times. She just kept losing husbands all throughout her life. I can't imagine what kind of perspective she has on the meaning of life…

NASCAR driving

Careless and reckless behaviors seem to crop up in the widowed population. Hmmm...this might help explain my flirtation with speeding on the highway - one friend refers to it as NASCAR driving. Sure as a teenager I drove fast a couple of times to see what it was like, but in the past year when I'm on a long open stretch of highway I can get a real lead foot. There's a bridge near Tampa which has one particularly long straight stretch where you can see traffic for quite a distance and there's no place for someone with radar to hide. This is where I first made a mental note that "hey, I’m going kind of fast here."

The habit came out again a couple of weeks ago when driving from Alabama to South Carolina. The undulating hills provided a perfect setting of long downhill sections (with no hiding place for radar) and then long uphill sections on which to coast and slow down - I was careful to slow down before going over the hillcrests. After two hours of rollercoaster roads I came over the top of a hill and zipped right passed two patrol cars in the median. The cars were positioned so the two drivers could talk to one another. Slowing down over the crests had spared me from a huge bill… I was only a little over the limit, but I swear one of the cars tooted his horn as if to say - hey, watch yourself there buddy.

Phase 2 - Increased mortality rate

Phase two in "Seven Choices" (stumbling in the dark) noted health issues and self-destructive behaviors which can crop up. In people over age forty-five the mortality rate for surviving spouses increases up to 46% over a comparable non-widowed population, and the mortality rate appears to be higher for up to six years after the loss.

Aren't you done yet?

The Seven Choices book came at time when I've been feeling uneasy. I've been experiencing fewer grieving symptoms but my life hasn't been feeling any more "normal". If anything, I have more unresolved questions now about what we're doing here.

How strange. Up to now I've been on the watch for people who might say "aren't you done with grieving yet". After all, grieving and mourning happen at a different pace for everyone - and I was going to make sure not to feel pressured to move along any more quickly. Yet here I was seemingly saying to myself - hey grieving seems to be on the wane, aren't you done yet?

I think the question arose because I couldn't picture what's next. That's where the book has come in handy. It's given a framework from which to see a higher level view of how things might proceed. It's given me ideas about the types of issues I might be facing and how I might root them out. The book also quoted a study which suggested that the average person takes about two years to work through grieving and mourning and then rebuilding their vision of what life is about.

If anything, now I feel like I might be progressing slower than average. I guess that's the problem with people quoting numbers, you start comparing yourself to some model of how things might work. ;)

Book: Seven Choices

I'm reading a new book on grieving that's arrived at the right time in the right place. A friend bought it try to better understand what I'm going through, but she soon offered the copy to me as she could see my obvious interest in the book: “Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters your World - Seven Choices”.

It’s written by a widow - what a difference when the author’s not just made clinical observations of loss, but actually been through the experience herself. Anyway the book maps out a path of seven phases and gives examples of people experiencing each phase. The first few phases were familiar to me which gives me some faith that the future phases might be on my path too.
Essentially the experiences and the associated choices are:

1. Experiencing the unthinkable - choosing to experience grieving fully
2. Stumbling in the dark - to endure with patience
3. Linking past to present - to look honestly
4. Turning into the wind - to replan and change to include, but not be dominated by the loss
5. Picking up the pieces - to take specific actions
6. Finding solid ground - to engage in conflicts
7. Daylight - to make and remake choices

Sitting Still

I guess it's natural for grieving and thoughts of the past to be making a comeback this month given the activities which were going on a year ago. Was it really a year ago? Some images are so clear that they feel like they could have happened yesterday.

Having built a life with someone for so long felt like creating a sailboat. At first a simple lashing together of two simple rafts. A rickety structure that with care is transformed into a mighty schooner - and all done while floating along on the waves.

Of course losing your partner is like hitting a reef and having the ship sink in shallow water - leaving only a portion of the ship exposed above the surf. Some folks wouldn't be able to abandon the ship and (though solo) would attempt to keep the remaining hull in good repair thinking that this particular ship might sail once again.

Others would jump into the surf but not wanting to leave would circle the ship, treading water, slowly draining their energy.

Others would quickly swim to shore and walk away (or run), not being able to bear looking back at the wreck.

Still others would allow their body to ride the vicious waves and be naturally pushed to shore, coming to rest in the unstable sandy surf. Eventually gaining the will to pull themselves up onto firmer ground. Maybe they'd take time to sit and view the ship's remains. Maybe they'd take time to contemplate the fine adventures they'd once had. Over time exploring down the beach but often returning to their perch. Curiously beginning to gather flotsam and jetsam for a new raft.

Me, I can't claim to be any one those characters. Some things I've let happen, some things I've forced, some things I've run away from. I've spent time gathering new materials. I've spent time testing the waters. Lately it feels right to take some time and to sit still on the beach.

Crescent moon

A few weeks ago I saw a crescent moon. It seemed like for the first time ever I viewed the slight moon as three dimensional - knowing that the sliver was simply a portion of the fully illuminated moon surface. I could immediately sense the rest of the sunny side fully ablaze in light. The slim moon suddenly had depth to it that I had never before known.

I wondered, how many other times in life do we see only a portion of the big picture? Sometimes seeing it years later, probably many times never seeing it at all.

Never again

Last winter was a pretty stinky time. I remember when Robin was in the hospital in early January 2007 I had the realization that the distance she could travel and the experiences she could have were diminishing with time.

As the week's progressed there were continued losses which just became harder and harder to accept, e.g.:

as she left the hospital - she would never again be "without cancer"
as people arrived to help - it would never again be life with just us two
as she slowed down physically - there would never again be the carefree Robin
as she lost the ability to think clearly - there would never again would be the 'rational' Robin

The absolute hardest time was the last week when she began speaking less and less frequently - and sleeping constantly. I remember being upset (even angry inside) if I learned that she'd spoken when I wasn't in the room. Back then I began to wonder when would be the last time I'd get to hear her voice.

Even when Robin no longer spoke to me, my sister Kim said she could see Robin respond when I spoke to her. A raised eyebrow, a slight turning of the head, a relaxation of her body. The last few days I persisted in talking to her, in keeping her lips moist with a glycerin swab, in massaging her arms and legs. I had to keep it up for both her and for me, we never knew when those pleasures would be 'never again'.

Grieving at eleven months

That little voice inside that used to ask "where did Robin go?" seems to understand that she's gone now. It no longer seems to need to figure out "to where" anymore.

Maybe like a young kid who accepts that their grandparents have gone to heaven, it's satisfied to know that she's moved on.

A new phase

My friend Sue can tell when I'm ready to do something different. I start tapping my feet, I get restless, I start humming a tune.

My recent 'restless' moods seem to be telling me it's time for a new phase. I've spent much of the last year testing out this new world. Unlearning some limits, unlearning some fears and doing things I never imagined possible for myself. It hasn't always been easy but mostly I've tried to go with the flow. I guess that's what I needed first - to stand on my own, to see that I'm still here. I still make mistakes (a lot) but I don't worry about them like I used to years ago.

I think the biggest change lately is this increasing desire to think to the future and picture where it goes. I think it's harder to contemplate now, having seen death so close and now wondering what we're all doing here. Well, maybe more specifically, "what am I doing here?" I feel a need again for some occasional alone time. Time to think things through some more I guess.

Among recent revelations is the number of folks I know (or have know over the years) who have gone through a similar experience of losing a spouse at a young age (I'm arbitrarily thinking before age 45). I can think of about six folks off the top of my head. Some I had occasion to meet within a year of their loss. A couple of folks had experienced their loss when they were young, but by the time I met them they were in the 50's or late 80's so it had been up to fifty years ago. Having had similar experiences it's somehow absurdly easy to get into a conversation about what we'd been through.

Off balance

It seems like I have three states these days. One I think of as the distracted state. I'm busy doing things. I'm focused on doing a project or spending time with folks. In this state I forget the sadness. It seems like life is somehow normal. I’m engrossed with whatever is going on. I'm looking forward to plans for tomorrow or next week.

Then there is the sad state. Too much time alone and my thoughts drift back to just a year ago and how things weren't going so well. It starts with what seems a random thought here or there, and then a few minutes later my mind is focused on the subject. It goes back over details, remembers images, thinks about the goodbyes.

Then there is the uncomfortable state. In this one I'm thinking about what is happening. I consider how I can get caught up in thinking about things that happened in the past. I think about how nice is to enjoy moments or days when I can have a sense of being involved in things again. Although this third state feels the most uncomfortable, it also seems to be the most real state to be in.

I wonder when people go through something like this, how many try to force themselves to stay in one of these states? I hear about people who move on quickly to forge new relationships and who eventually run into relationship issues. I've met people who seem to have an attachment to the sadness and don't seem to want to be happy ever again. Maybe we all experience the different states, but in varying degrees. I try not to worry if any one is better than another. I guess by letting each of them have their place I indulge myself.

Even though I feel off balance sometimes, I trust that these forces balance one another.